


Fingertips

by becausefandom



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: AU, M/M, Slash, well it'll get more AU later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becausefandom/pseuds/becausefandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wolf carried his years in his eyes, for all the world to see. The vampire hid his behind nimble fingers, and eloquent language. Amongst danger and fire, there's a middle ground, where the only years that matter are the ones that they'll share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Remove your weapon.”

Hal speaks from between clenched teeth, his patience already frayed. He ought to be at home, in his room, reading for the next fifteen minutes. Instead he finds himself in Barry, his friends irritated by his stubbornness, the car out of fuel, his shoes rubbing, and this _mutt_ creasing his waistcoat. He wants to snap, and snarl, and vent his rage, but Leo is a calming presence, his disapproval a weighty dissuasion.

“I know what you are, but who are you, and who sent you here?”

The boy with the stake to his chest isn’t intimidated by him. He doesn’t move his weapon, he doesn’t step away, and Hal leans further away, whether out of caution or well-practiced habit he’s not sure.

“I’m going to count to ten; I suggest you use that time wisely. Step away.”

People are afraid of him. And rightly so. They do what he says.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Usually.

*

Every instinct Tom has is telling him to stab the bastard, but Annie made him promise, and he’s finding himself wanting to keep a lot of promises these days. He’s building himself a new life day by day; filling the gaps MacNair left with new people and new places and new promises.

But.

Killing vampires has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, so long he’s sure it must be a part of him now, must have seeped into his DNA along with the _other_ changes that have set him aside from the rest of humanity.

He keeps missing what people are saying; he knows Annie is rephrasing herself sometimes, thinking he doesn’t understand, but the truth is, he’s just not listening, not focussing.

Well, not on anything he ought to be. Instead his attention is held by the motion of the vampire’s hands; the arpeggio dancing on his fingertips. On a human, Tom thinks it would be nervous tic, a habit for distraction: here he reads it as scheming, plotting.

He wants to do something, _anything_ , to protect his- his _family_. But he promised he wouldn’t, so he just watches.

*

He can’t- God, it’s just so-

_breathe inoutinoutinout_

Hal can’t breathe in that house. There’re too many people; it’s too unbalanced. He’s used to Pearl, and Leo. Energy, and calm. One, and the other.

The décor is too bright, too mismatched. He feels like he’s never alone, can’t escape from it all. The house is another person, watching, judging. He feels like it knows his secrets, can read him like an open book: it’s waiting for him to slip up, so that everyone can find out what a monster he is.

Fifty-five years gone, just like that.

He fumbles in his pocket for the spare domino that always stays there.

-flip- _breathe in_ –flip- _breathe out_ –flip- _breathe in_ – flip- _breathe out_

The baby starts crying from somewhere upstairs, and the walls start moving inwards, the ceiling lowering.

–flip- _breathe in_ – flip- _breathe out_

The ticking of an unfamiliar clock feels like a countdown, like sand slipping through a timer.

-flip- _breathe in_ **tick** –flip- _breathe out_ **tock** –flip- _breathebreathe_ –flip- -flip- **tick** **tock** –flip- _breathebreathebreathe_ **tick tock tick tick tock** –flip- -flip-

He tries to separate everything, to distinguish between the cacophonies rolling through his brain. He needs to find order, and sequence, to break everything down, and build it back up in a way he understands, in a way he’s familiar with.

-flip- _breathe in_ **tick**

-flip- _breathe out_ **tock**

-flip- _breathe in_ **tick**

-flip- _breathe out_ **tock**

*

Hal finds himself propped up against the side of the house, breathing back under control, idly flipping his domino between his fingers. From here, he can watch the monotony of the street whilst maintaining his necessary distance. It’s almost…peaceful, atop this hill in an unfamiliar place, the old B&B sign creaking in the breeze. It’s not what he wants of course, but peaceful, nonetheless.

Until the door opens.

“I’m goin’ to the shop – d’you wanna come?”

And it’s not because he’s a werewolf, it’s _not_ , Hal’s far too old to take such things into account. It’s not even because of the stake. It’s the offer, the question. It’s – albeit haltingly, reluctantly – an attempt at, at something: not quite _friendship_ , but _something_ nonetheless.

There’s not anything he can compare it to, not really. He has three measures: his superiors, his inferiors, and Leo. It’s been fifty-five years since he had any superiors _or_ inferiors, so that just leaves… But Hal can’t compare this boy to Leo; Leo who had been willing to help him, to offer his support and friendship to someone who should, by all rights, hate him. The implication is out there for all to see though, and he doesn’t want to have to deal with it, neither now nor later.

So he lashes out.

“I’d love to, but I’ve made plans to sit in and self-harm.”

And the boy with the suspicious eyes lashes back.

“You’re a dickhead.”

*

And then there’s a swirl of emotion: good and bad, wanted and unwanted. There’s violence, and violence avoided. Habits broken, yes, but not destroyed.

Somewhere amidst the chaos Hal moves in.

The house dynamic changes, ever so slightly, routines and days shifting to accommodate the extra person, to accommodate Hal.

Tom learns to live with him, to set an extra place at the table or make an extra cup of tea when Annie is busy with Eve.

But he doesn’t stop watching.

He’s not sure he ever will.


	2. Chapter 2

Annie _adores_ having a ‘full house’ again. Both the boys know it: can see it most clearly in the way she fusses about in the mornings, making sure everyone has their tea just as they like it. And, despite all evidence that might suggest otherwise, they both find comfort in the dynamic they’ve established.

Tom’s relationship with Annie is obvious to anyone who cares to look – she’s the maternal figure he never really had, the one he shows his accomplishments to, and shares his worries with. In his early days as Honolulu Heights, Hal sees the pride that edges Tom’s cheerful grin when he hands Annie his wages for the day, and wonders idly if the bond is as maternal as he thought.

Hal’s relationship with Annie is harder to pinpoint. It’s a conflict between the fact that she is a woman that he _can’t_ hurt, someone who isn’t scared of him – for reasons and in ways he will never fully grasp – someone so like Pearl, but at the same time, so different. He _admires_ Annie; her willingness to open her home to him, to raise a child she’s not prepared to, the way she smiles gently when Tom hands her his wages, understanding things that Tom has never said and might never even recognise. She’s the sort of person Hal would have hated _before_ , but he finds – to his surprise - that he’s drawn to her in ways he didn’t expect.

And then there’s Annie. She makes the boys – _her_ boys – tea, and looks after Eve, and sits between them on the sofa to watch _Antiques Roadshow_. She’s finding a peace that she had lost, a respite from the turmoil she had found herself in. She could be so happy with the new family she’s made.

But she’s not. Not really. Well, not totally.

She loves them - she does - but like little brothers, people she has to look after. They’re not her friends, not in the way Mitchell and George were.

You wouldn’t know to look at her, to watch them. She is happy – as happy as can be expected – but sometimes things…slip, just a little, and she finds herself expecting something else. It’s there in the easy smile that falls across her face when she hears the familiar voices of the _Real Hustle_ crew, and the way her eyes shutter for a moment when the channel is unceremoniously changed. She’ll smile, and play along, and guess the value of a vase she doesn’t really care about. She’ll laugh silently with Tom over how seriously Hal takes their game, and circle when the show is on in the TV Guide, and miss the indignant anger that neither Hal nor Tom will show when the time-slot is changed.

And later, when everyone has gone to bed, and Eve is asleep in her arms, she’ll allow herself to mourn what she’s lost. Because it won’t be the same again, no matter how hard she tries. It’s like reading a book the second time round: it doesn’t matter how much you enjoy it, it lacks that intangible sense of _newness_ , of exploration.

Because Annie does adore having her house full again, if only because it makes it so much easier to lie to herself. To pretend that she hasn’t lost her entire world.

To pretend that she doesn’t feel a bone-deep loneliness when Hal glares at Tom for stealing the morning marmalade from under his fingertips.


End file.
